


Battle Wounds

by Irraya



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Multi, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-26
Updated: 2013-09-07
Packaged: 2017-12-24 18:39:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/943313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irraya/pseuds/Irraya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-destroy ending. A series of thoughts and events that occur in the year immediately after the destruction of the reapers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Immediately after Victory

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, I don't own Mass Effect/characters/etc. This is all appreciative fanwork.
> 
> This is all based in my very overdeveloped headcanon in which everyone is poly and dating each other (not exactly, but close enough). I tried to ensure that it wasn't necessary to understand the nuances behind every relationship to understand the thing. Hopefully, I succeeded because it would take multiple chapters just to explain it.  
> I will try to bring up relevant information by chapter if needed.  
> Almost all of the Normandy crew makes an appearance at some point, even though this focuses on certain ones.
> 
> This is NOT specfically a transfic, but it does contain trans* characters and themes  
> -Shepard is a trans woman and transitioned in the six month period between me2 and me3 (unrealistically quick, I know, the turians have this thing that speeds along the process and there's still one left that works for humans)  
> -Traynor (Sam) is genderqueer and takes the pronoun "they"  
> -Miranda is a trans woman, this is one of the (many) reasons for hating her father, she acted as a mentor for Shepard during me2

“No Shepard without Vakarian”. The words still echoed in his mind long after they were clear of the blast. Of course he had no actual clue where she was, but, knowing Shepard, she was probably right n the middle of the explosion. Heck, she had probably made it happen. 

And that meant…

No. He couldn’t think about it. His job was to help fix up the Normandy, fly it back to earth (figure out how to get through the dead mass relays), find Shepard before she found she needed him. He still had Tali. He couldn’t think about the losses and the possibilities. There wasn’t time.  
And then there was EDI. He wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone, but he had grown fond of the AI. He had a feeling she was gone for good, but he couldn’t help but pitch in when Tali and Joker started to frantically attempt to get her back online. He knew it was only a matter of time until they’d be forced to put her name on the memorial wall, but as long as there was hope, as long as there was the possibility (and Tali assured Joker there was, though her predictions to Garrus were a bleaker) , they could stave off the inevitable. Every life gained was a miracle. 

 

They got back to Earth. He held hands with Sam and Tali as they waited for news from Hackett. Shepard and Anderson were reported missing, along with the Illusive Man. Sam tried to hold back tears. He wanted to reach out to them, comfort them, fill that void they must feel, considering the one he felt. Missing was good, he tried to tell himself, missing wasn’t dead. 

The reapers were gone, but so were the geth. No one knew what had happened, they had simply cut off, like EDI. The quarians were discussing rebuilding, a second chance. He hoped they would learn from their mistakes. 

With the Normandy in for repairs, and no Shepard, the crew had nothing to do except help rebuild. The Citadel was gone, exploded with the Crucible, there was talk of making Earth the new galactic headquarters, considering its role in the war (and the fact that many were having trouble getting back to their homeworlds without the mass relays). It was a political nightmare in the making. 

 

He found Miranda. She wasn’t running anymore, the Illusive Man was missing, and she had better things to do. She helped Jack organize and train biotics. It seemed like a silly thing to be doing while the galaxy recovered from war and then he looked around and saw all the untrained, terrified biotics wreaking havoc on everything, simply due to panic.  
They let him move in with them. And, of course, Tali came with. She was still planning her house on Rannoch, but she had other tasks – as soon as they had come back, she had been asked to lead the Geth reconstruction project. She was probably the only one who could, and everyone knew it but her. 

His relationship with Miranda was strained. At one time, it had been second nature, love and trust, and fighting off Collectors like a badass. But there had been the time apart to open up a new wound. Even though he knew the answer (Shepard. Shepard was always the answer), he couldn’t help but wonder why she had never told him when she was on the Citadel and had waited until Sanctuary to even tell him she was on the run. It soured everything. 

Jack didn’t seem to have the same qualms. She was just glad to have her ex-Cerberus cheerleader back where they could disagree without the use of omnitools. In many ways, Jack, wanted criminal in the entire galaxy, was a much better person than Garrus, ex-C-sec officer, ever would be. 

 

He volunteered for the crew searching the wreckage of the Citadel and the Crucible. Despite Tali’s knowing looks, he did it because he knew it was somewhere he could help, not at all because he hoped they would uncover Shepard. If she was missing, he told himself, she would probably have moved on from the burned ruins by now.


	2. Sam Traynor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanon details that may be useful:  
> -this is a very transphobic and binarist (for humans) universe. The Binary Legalities are basically a set of laws that was set in place around 2140 (before Shepard was born), which pretty much says that gender is defined by biology and there are only two. These are still currently in place. 
> 
> (sorry to anyone who likes Kelly...this is the only time she comes up, I promise!)

_Commander Jennifer Shepard: missing for **8** months_

Sam hadn’t even been sure whether or not they’d make it to EDI’s memorial service. Not because it was physically impossible – the Normandy was still docked in London for repairs and they hadn’t been able to leave the city. It was simply that they were embarrassed.

Everyone else from the Normandy had thrown themselves immediately into some kind of work for the greater good. Tali was reconstructing the Geth, Cortez and Joker were flying supply ships and ambulances, James had undergone an ad hoc N7 exam (easy because of all his field experience), and was busy as Kaidan’s executive officer, the human spectre doing a number of classified missions for the Council, which James refused to tell Sam about whenever he ran into them. (He was the only one they stayed in touch with, Sam was always comfortable around James, probably an age thing). Hell, Garrus was even helping salvage the Citadel. 

Sam, on the other hand, had failed. Originally assigned to help with Normandy repairs, their superior officers had kept moving Sam to other, easier assignments, and then gently relieved them of duty, claiming they were giving Sam time to visit a psych and figure out their post-traumatic stress disorder.

But Sam knew it wasn’t the PTSD that kept them awake crying long into the night and too exhausted to work during the day, it was grief. Overwhelming grief, mixed in with just enough hope to make everything that much worse.

Everyone else seemed to be coping with Shepard’s continued missing status. (No one else seemed to be counting the days, and noticing that in four months, she would be proclaimed dead). Sam was the odd one out, the one that wasn’t really a soldier, the one that couldn’t put their emotions aside for the good of the galaxy, the one that was really quite helpless when it came right down to it. 

Sam wasn’t sure if they would be able to handle the looks of pity when they failed to tell the others what they had been doing the past eight months. That was all Sam was – Shepard’s little pet, now abandoned, nothing more.

 

And still, Sam went because, failure and pity or not, EDI had been a friend. It was the least they could do for her.  
Though the possibility of being invited to dinner certainly helped the decision. 

The Normandy felt silent without EDI, Sam had forgotten the deafening silence from that final trip to Earth (they had blocked that horrible trip from their mind), but it came back the minute they stepped on board, the ship was hollow. 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” a woman near her swore (slightly familiar from dancing at that party, but Sam couldn’t remember a name or a history), covered in tattoos swore, “this isn’t the fucking Normandy, its some kind of husk ship”. Sam just stared.

“Jack,” the woman, extended out her hand, “helped take down a Collector base a while back, now I’ve settled down to teach”. Sam kept staring, “You shake it, you know?” Jack prompted, gesturing towards the hand. 

Sam extended their hand out automatically, Jack had a very strong handshake.

“And you would be…?” Jack was clearly less than impressed at the lack of response. Sam started.

“Samantha Traynor,” they managed to say, “Just…just call me Sam”. Saying it still felt weird, even though it was better than the other options. They were Sam, they were just not used to other people knowing that. Jen…Shepard had been the one to encourage them to go by the nickname more and more, _Sam_ couldn’t let her work go to waste.

“Ah. the great Sam” Jack smiled genuinely, Sam was shocked. “I’ve heard about you, you know, apparently you were much better than Kelly, awful fucking bitch”

“Kelly?” Sam had never heard the name uttered, ever.

“The shit yeoman,” Jack explained, “at least when I was aboard. Communications specialist, filled your role, but also a psych. Spent more time trying to profile us and suck up to the Commander than actually doing her fucking job, Tali assures me you did much better.”

“I guess I’ll take that as a compliment?” Sam had stopped trying to follow Jack’s logic and was just attempting to understand the words. 

“Something she isn’t telling me then,” Jack was staring quizzically, a little too quizzically for Sam’s taste, “Lots of things she isn’t telling me”. 

She smiled again and clapped Sam on the back.

“Anyways, we’ve got a memorial to attend to for that badass of an AI that used to run this place.” She strode into the elevator and Sam stumbled after her, still shocked that someone was even talking to them.

In the elevator, they found Jack staring at the ceiling, suddenly quiet and subdued.

“You know,” she murmured (and Sam decided this was not aimed at all at them, more just a thing that had to be said), “EDI was the first person on this goddam ship to realise I was human. She deserved better”. 

Sam suddenly had millions of question – who was this Jack? what had she been to Shepard? where had been her favourite places on the ship? what did she mean, EDI _realizing_ she was human? what were the tattoos for? what did she teach? Of course she had heard about Jack, in brief conversations between the older squadmates, knew they had run into her at Grissom Academy, but she would never have been able to imagine this vibrant, angry, terrifying (beautiful) human that couldn’t control her mouth or her emotions from those descriptions.

Sam kept their mouth shut, afraid of what would come out if they opened it. 

 

Seeing Joker cry made everything worse. Before, EDI had just been absent. Now, she was gone for good. There was an aching in Sam’s heart that refused to go away. 

 

Tali insisted that Sam came home with her, so the two of them could catch up over “tea” (Tali couldn’t drink tea, she drank a similar equivalent that Shep…the crew had taken to calling tea a long time ago). Sam thought about refusing, or running away, but necessity won out, they needed food. 

It made sense that Tali lived with Garrus, but Sam hadn’t been expecting to see Miranda (ex-Cerberus, used to be executive officer, helped out at Sanctuary, Sam had never properly met her) or Jack again. Tali had already set them down in the kitchen with tea while she was preparing her dextro equivalent when the others walked in. Garrus and Miranda nodded at them and slipped into a back room, but Jack barged in and sat on a counter next to Tali.

“Well if it isn’t Sam,” she drawled, “Nice to see you again, girl” Sam stiffened inwardly at the word. It was painful, but not horrible, and certainly not Jack’s fault, Sam reminded themselves sternly. 

“Sam’s not a girl, Jack,” Tali spoke furiously, “Ask before assuming, you should know that by now” (Back on the Normandy, it had always been Jen…Shepard…the Commander defending Sam, they hadn’t even realized the others had noticed or cared)

“Yeah, yeah,” Jack rolled her eyes but turned back to Sam, “Sorry, Sam, I really shouldn’t have, it was rude. And, you know, while we’re at it, what’s the pronoun?” 

Sam started. The first (and last) person to ask them that had been Jen…Shepard, it always seemed like the rest of the world didn’t give a fuck, especially with the Binary Legalities still in place.

Tali slapped at Jack with a spoon.

“Bosh’tet,” she grumbled, “you’re scaring them.” Jack just grinned and grabbed the spoon. 

“Now,” Jack continued, pointing the spoon at Sam, “Seeing as we’ve smoshed that assumption, I still have some others to go through. Mind if I ask you some questions, see if I’m right?”

Everything was moving too fast, Sam had no idea what was going on, their head nodded automatically.

“When was the last time you ate?” Jack’s spoon had taken on an almost accusatory air. Sam’s brain attempted to process the question…and then the answer.

“Wednesday?” she wasn’t really sure. Tali gasped audibly. 

“That was three days ago, Sam” Jack said levelly, “are you sure?”

They nodded, still on automatic. A part of Sam’s brain wanted to run, run away as fast as possible, the rest of them was too fatigued, and Jack pointing it out made the fatigue that much more noticeable. And maybe this meant they would get food…

Tali and Jack shared a glance before Tali went back to preparing her “tea”. 

“Sam,” Jack was suddenly right next to them, very close, very quiet, very serious “Where do you live?”

And that was it. Everything burst. The tears just kept coming and coming and coming, more and more. They were dimly aware of Tali leaving the kitchen and then returning with others (Garrus? Miranda?), hushed voices, questions, angry muttering. The only thing they were certain of was Jack’s arms holding her up as she let out all of the emotion from the past eight months in one go. 

“I think you’ll be staying with us tonight,” Jack muttered in her ear, “If there’s anyone expecting you, they can suck it”


	3. Tali'Zorah vas Normandy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise for the leap of logic. It kind of just happened and maybe I'll figure out the why someday...

_Commander Jennifer Shepard: missing for **9** Months_

Sometimes Tali forgot how young they all were. It had only been four years ago that she had set out on her pilgrimage, never expecting to meet Shepard, and then save the galaxy (multiple times). And now she was an admiral, with the impossible assignment of reconstructing the geth. It was ironic to think that, a year ago, the quarians would have probably tasked her with the exact opposite of her current task. 

And she would have done it, too. Destroyed all of them, in a single breath, because she had believed they were the reason her people were quarantined on the Migrant Fleet.  
Keelah! how she hated her younger self and longed for it at the same time. That simple black and white, geth versus quarians, no guilt, no regret. 

 

She would be lying if she didn’t admit that she was hoping Legion would be one of her reconstructed geth. 

But she had failed to bring EDI back and Joker’s face at the memorial haunted her. She knew it was just the simple fact that EDI had been a single, one-of-a kind AI that could never be repeated in history, but she couldn’t help feeling that it was her fault. 

She kept failing her friends. She had stormed away in anger when Shepard had come out instead of supporting her through the arrest and transition. (She had claimed that she had slept with a man, and couldn’t love anyone but that man, and the silent hurt in Shepard’s eyes could be felt inside her environmental suit. Somedays, Tali wanted to cut her tongue out for that – she loved Shepard, and Shepard was a woman, if only she had accepted that sooner).

And then, she had been hysterical, worried about Han’Gerrel’s (the bosh’tet) troops, when Legion had died for the sake of the geth (if only she had just trusted that he would never do anything to harm the quarians, or hurt her, then at least he wouldn’t have died questioning her love). 

And, worst of all, she hadn’t noticed the shuttle coming down on her and Garrus until it was too late and they were both injured (if only she had been looking up and called out, then maybe they would have continued with Shepard and supported her when she needed. They could have dragged her off the Citadel and she wouldn’t still be missing). 

So much pain and death was her fault. But, if she could reconstruct the geth, at least she would be putting one more good thing back into the world. And this time, she’d make sure the quarians did it right.

Yes, keelah, these units were going to have their own wonderful souls, and they wouldn’t even have to ask. 

 

“Creator Zorah”

She whirled around in her spot. According to her plans, they shouldn’t be speaking for at least a few more weeks, more likely to be years, the geth-2 behind her should not be able to speak, let alone recognize her. 

This couldn’t be right. The geth platform behind her (that she had just been working on, and she knew exactly how it was constructed and designed) was powered up and had a piece of N7 armor patching up its right arm. It was impossible. 

She blinked, the Legion lookalike was still there, head tilted slightly to the side, probably wondering what the hell she was doing.

This had to be an illusion or something. Grieving. She remembered overhearing a conversation, a long time ago, Shepard and Kaidan, after Virmire. Something about different stages of grief, survivor’s guilt, letting the grief consume you, things she had written off as exclusive to humans at the time. But now, that had to be it. She had lost too much, was somewhere in the different stages of grief, probably different places for each loss, and survivor’s guilt, yes. Especially in regards to Legion, because, in many ways, she had killed him. 

That was it, the grief had consumed her and she was just witnessing the product of her guilt. She ran from the warehouse, ignoring the call of “Wait, Creator Zorah! I wish to speak with you” (“I”, that proved it, Legion only referred to himself that way as he died, because he was the only geth dying that die, the “we” would live on, bosh’tets, of course her confused mind would remember his death more than his life.)

 

Everyone was out, when she got back to the apartment. They had found Sam a new job, fixing translators and helping people understand the idioms that couldn’t really be translated. Jack and Miranda didn’t finish teaching for a few hours. And Garrus, well, Garrus was where he always was, searching for Shepard, under the pretense of salvaging the Citadel. Tali found his manic obsession with the whole thing terrifying (and yet she wanted him to be successful so very much).

Hesitantly, she scrolled through her contacts on her omnitool, and called the one person that might possibly help (besides Mordin, but he was dead, along with everyone else in this horrible excuse of a world).

“Doctor Chakwas?”

“Tali? What a pleasant surprise! and how are you doing?”

“Doctor Chakwas, I believe I am sick” Tali was shaking. Chakwas seemed to understand the seriousness in her tone – quarians were constantly ill, they carried an array of medical paraphernalia in their pockets at all time, they knew how to treat illness. If one was personally contacting a non-quarian medical profession, it was clearly serious business.

 

Two hours later, she was standing in Chakwas office as the doctor checked her over again.

“I don’t understand, Tali, all of your vitals are perfectly fine, why would you think you’re ill?”

She had asked the same question multiple times in the past hour. And Tali had continued to mutter excuses about extreme fatigue, insufficient mental processing, anything but the truth. 

But she had to own up to it sometime because this was getting nowhere. Chakwas was convinced she was fine, she was convinced otherwise.

“Doctor Chakwas,” she shrunk in on herself, scared of the reaction, “I think I saw something”. The doctor motioned that she was listening, continuing to scratch in her notebook.  
“I mean…”she was stuttering, keelah, “not just something, because that could be anything, I mean more like, something that’s not supposed to be there, nononono, something that isn’t there but I still see anyways…” she trailed off hopelessly.

“You mean a hallucination?” Chakwas asked.

“Yes, that” Tali sighed, now she was the freak who saw hallucination, not that she hadn’t always been a freak or anything. 

“Tali,” Chakwas was suddenly dead serious, staring directly at her, “Quarians don’t hallucinate.”

“Guess I’ve been spending too much time with humans, then” maybe she was becoming a human, maybe that was the problem. 

Chakwas shook her head emphatically, “No, that’s not how it works.” She took a breath, “I think I need to know what you saw so we can figure out what’s going on”. 

 

She was shaking as they approached the warehouse of geth-2 models. Chakwas sensed Tali’s fear and squeezed her hand. The only other person who ever did that was Shepard, but she did it to everyone – not just her. Humans were always squeezing things – shoulders, hands, knees, each one meant something slightly different and she could never really sort it out. Squeezing had very little meaning when you were constantly protected by an environmental suit. 

But still, it felt good. It grounded her, reminded her that, no matter what, there was still this human, Doctor Chakwas (not Shepard, but still, one of the best humans she knew) protecting her. 

They opened the door.

There was a single circular light on in the back of the warehouse. 

She turned the lights on. A geth in N7 armor was staring back at her.

“Do…do you see him?” she whispered, still not able to understood what she was seeing. 

“Yes, Tali, I see Legion,” Chakwas’ voice was calming, “I don’t know how that happened, but I can promise you that there is nothing wrong with you, you are in good…”  
Legion was alive! Tali stopped listening to Chakwas because the only thing that mattered now was Legion.

Now that she knew this was Legion, and not some weird human illusion thing, all she wanted was to be with him. She didn’t care that it was impossible for him to be there, this was Legion and she owed him her life. If the universe was going to give her a second chance, she wasn’t going to mess it up this time. 

His head lifted an infinite degree as she approached.

“It is good to see you, Creator Zorah” She smiled under the mask and reached out to touch his shoulder, a gesture that she had once done ten (or more) times a day.

“It’s good to see you too, Legion”


	4. Jack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Grunt!
> 
> also, general warning for Jack's language.

_Commander Jennifer Shepard: missing for **10** Months_

She was going to kill that fucking Krogan in 3…2…dammit. Jack sighed as Garrus walked through the door. No way she could get away with killing anyone while the goddam ex-cop was here. 

Ok ok. She actually did like Grunt. Just…not now. There were things she didn’t need to hear ever, or think about. Shepard was gone. She had grieved, gotten over it. The fact that the adolescent krogan hadn’t,not her problem. 

Also, why the fuck was Garrus here? He had said he wouldn’t be back until dinner at the earliest, most likely not for a few days. He was never really at the apartment to begin with anymore, always off, looking for Shepard. Jack certainly admired his stubbornness, even when she worried what his denial was doing to his sanity. 

“Garrus!” Grunt jumped up excitedly to clasp hands with the turian, who returned the gesture…listlessly. Jack was suspicious. 

“Good to see you too, Grunt,” Garrus slouched into a chair, “didn’t know you were coming”

“I actually didn’t know either,” Jack had to point out that absolutely no one had known about the surprise visit from Tuchanka, “woke up this morning to a houseful of Krogan. Wrex and Tali are introducing the baby-thing to Legion, Eve’s followed Sam out the door and hasn’t come back, and I’m stuck here entertaining Junior”

“I’m not a junior,” Grunt protested, “I am pure Krogan, I lead Aralakh company, and I was born an adult”. He was pacing between the kitchen and the living room, like he had been for the past few hours (while their conversation had slipped down the dangerously slippy slope of Shepard’s continued missingness. That bitch really needed to figure out when the disappearing act had gone on long enough, dammit.)

“My argument stands,” Jack rolled her eyes. She was glad she hadn’t killed Grunt actually. He was fun to have around if nothing else. 

Garrus should have been laughing, he always laughed at Grunt. Something was seriously, incredibly wrong. What if…? Fuck. No way in hell.

Shepard was dead, but Garrus didn’t believe that. If there had been a body…Jack couldn’t begin to imagine the consequences, so she refused to believe it possible. She also refused to believe that she still harbored hope that Shepard was alive. She had set off a fucking explosion from the middle of the thing, Shepard was dead. End of story.

She glanced at Grunt, currently in the living room, experimenting with head butting the couch (oh how she loved the krogan) and sighed. If Garrus was going to need a psych, might as well start sorting it now.

“What’s up Vakarian?” She leaned back in her chair, arms crossed, “You’re home early”.

“Day off,” Garrus replied evenly, “We, uh…found something”. It was all very questionable.

“Something good to kill?” Grunt called from the living room.

“This place isn’t your fucking hunting range!” Jack called, while Garrus shook his head.

“Naw, it…he was already dead” Garrus was avoiding something. (but at least it wasn’t Shepard, she hated how pleased she was about that).

“Garrus, who did you find?” She tried to make sure her glare told him ‘no funny business’, they had lived together for ten months and shared Miranda for much longer, he should know better than to evade her questions.

“We found Anderson… _Admiral_ Anderson…” He trailed off, looked at his hands. Why that so important? Anderson was some kind of big shot in the Alliance, friend of Shepard’s, that was about all she knew, not why his dead body would be making her friend feel like shit. 

“So?”

He looked at her in confusion. Was she missing something obvious?

“Anderson was the last person she was seen with,” Garrus explained. Oh. shit.

“Find anything else, then?” She still wasn’t sure what this meant, except that they were close, they were going to find her dead body and then this whole missing fiasco would be over and she knew, as sure as she knew she was Subject Zero, that Garrus wouldn’t survive the loss (Jack probably wouldn’t either, no one who had ever served on the Normandy would, but that would still be secondary to Garrus, he wasn’t suffering loss, he was suffering obsession, slight difference). 

“Nohing but the body, just…” Garrus continued to stare at his hands, “He had a bullet wound”

“So? He got shot” She was missing something again.

“They took the bullet in for analyzing, but I…I didn’t need to analyse it,” he sucked in a deep breath, his eyes trained on his hands, “It was from her gun, Jack. I don’t know why, but she shot Anderson, she was with him and she shot him”.

“Are you sure?” Garrus was mess, not to be trusted, “sure it wasn’t some adversary with the same gun?” She knew it wasn’t stolen. Shepard never let anyone touch her guns, it was impossible. 

He shook his head, “it was a pretty personalized gun, personalized bullets, lots of fancy things I didn’t really know about. I just…remember the bullets particularly well”. Jack was not going to ask about that (even though she was sure her mind had just dipped into the dirty depths of the gutter that Garrus couldn’t even imagine. He probably meant playing catch or something, boring old turian). 

“I just, I don’t understand,” he was whispering now. If she was Tali or Miranda, she would have leaned over and patted his knee or something, but she wasn’t the comforting sort (except where Sam was concerned, another soft spot she’d never admit to), and really, Garrus didn’t need comfort, he needed Shepard (or a good slap in the head to get him off his obsession, whichever was easiest). 

“Anderson wasn’t just her commanding officer,” he continued, “He was her friend. She told me once that she considered him her adopted father…her own family betrayed her a long while back”.

“Really?” This was classified information that only those dating Shepard got, Jack was curious.

“Well, kicked her out, she grew up on the streets”.

“Street rat” Like Jack had been after escaping the facility on Pragia, like Sam had been before moving in with them. There were certain pains she couldn’t voice, ever. Life sucked. 

“Just, why would she shoot him?”, Garrus sounded so lost. Jack couldn’t hear turian subvocals, but she could certainly hear the unasked question there. Had Shepard fallen? Was their moral compass broken? Was she even the same person? She tried not to look too closely, the prospect was terrifying – an indoctrinated Shepard coming back to slaughter them. And Jack would let her, because she’d follow Shepard anywhere, do whatever she said. Dying would only be that much worse in that she’d be dying for someone who’d betrayed her. 

Grunt grew bored of the couch and wandered back into the kitchen. Sometimes Jack wondered what the hell her life had become, and then wondered why she was asking the question. Subject Zero crying under the desk in her cell had never imagined that she’d someday be in her own home, counseling her girlfriend’s turian boyfriend while her krogan houseguest head butted the couch. She had these weird moments when she realized that she was actually happy (and then felt guilty because everyone was so unhappy after the Reaper War, but then, none of them had spent their childhood in a torture cell, unhappy had a different meaning for them). She blamed Shepard for all this softness.

“Who’s shooting who?” Grunt demanded, “Can I help?”

This time Garrus laughed. He laughed and laughed and laughed. Grunt looked at Jack in confusion.

“Was it really that funny?”

“Don’t flatter yourself Grunt,” she retorted, “He’s under a lot of stress, he’ll find anything funny”. 

Garrus was still laughing. Jack sighed, she felt weak, out of control, watching him fall apart, it was unacceptable. She grabbed a dextro-beer from the fridge and slammed it in front of him. He showed no signs of stopping, so she slapped him.

“Drink your beer, wise guy,” she demanded, “and then straight to bed and no waking up until this time tomorrow. Grunt and I are going out for a walk before we kill each other in here”

She stormed out, dragging Grunt along in her wake, before she could hear a response. Softness wasn’t an option. Weakness was inacceptable. She was not worried about Garrus, Shepard was dead, and now she was going to spar a krogan. Happiness didn’t exist. Life was crap and you made the best of it. End of the fucking story.


	5. James Vega

_Commander Jennifer Shepard: missing for **11** Months_

“Hey Vega, free tomorrow?” Steve looked up from the stove as James strolled in, dumping bags and armor at the front door. Steve would yell at him later, it was a tiny apartment, and his dirty laundry would make the whole place stink. Right now, however, a clean apartment wasn’t their top priority.

He sidled up to the stove, wrapping an arm around Steve’s waist  
.  
“Nothing I can’t rearrange,” he responded, trying to get a taste of whatever was in the pot while Steve batted his hand away, “Why? Want to take me for another date? You know, they say third time’s the charm, I’m sure you’ll get it by your tenth, maybe twentieth time”.

The one thing James had learned since landing on Earth and properly, officially dating Lieutenant Steve Cortez (as opposed to a few random…adventures on the shuttle deck and, of course, the night before they hit London), was that the man couldn’t pull off a date without some kind of minor disaster. The first one hadn’t been so bad – he just spilled wine over everyone in the restaurant (literally everyone, James was still unsure of the actual science behind the incident). But then there had been the baby crocodiles under their table on the second date (not Steve’s fault, but James wasn’t going to let him off that easy). And of course there was the time when Steve had (quite stupidly) informed Jack of his evening plans and she had shown up with her biotic varren to “entertain” (ie. spy). After that, they had decided being a couple without dates was probably a better idea, James could live with that, as long as it meant he never got any more crocodile bites (crocodiles didn’t even live in London…another unsolved mystery in Steve’s curse of unsuccessful dates).

“Naw, I think I’ve had enough of those for a lifetime,” Steve shook his head and suddenly his smile slipped off his face, “I just have this run from the salvage site that I think you should come on”.

That was strange. Steve’s job was normally incredibly boring, just move boxes from point A to point B, he complained about it all the time. (It wasn’t like James’ was much better, the N7 marines were just stuck patrolling the city, pretty much a redundant police squad keeping the peace as the galaxy really had no need for soldiers or military personnel at the moment. Sometimes he got escort duty, for officials, medical emergencies, that sort of thing, it was a little better, but still boring. He had gone from killing brutes and banshees on a regular basis to playing hopscotch, it was frustrating).

“I could come, why?” boring or not, he’d do it if Steve wanted him, maybe there was some heavy lifting? (Not that Steve wasn’t strong, James was just stronger).

“They started salvaging the Silversun Strip,” Steve explained, “I’m assigned to box and transport the salvage from an apartment that’s under Anderson’s name tomorrow”.

James reminded himself that breathing was something that he did, and needed to continue doing.

“You mean, Shepard’s apartment?”

“Well, unless he had two in the same location, Anderson gave it to her, but never legally,” Steve replied, “She didn’t live in it much, or anything, but its still hers.”

He took a deep breath, “Not sure if I even want to be doing the job”.

What would be left? Shepard never really owned much to begin with, and there was very little in that apartment that had been specifically belonged to her. But still, those paintings, that pool table, even one of those bar stools, each one would remind him of that one day, the party. Everything had felt perfect then, despite the knowledge that it was the end. They had all known it then, just as they knew it now. But, after experiencing the end, even a shot glass from that apartment would probably push James to tears now. Not that James Vega cried or anything. 

But still, a chance to see it, to remember that time…

“Better you than any other shuttle driver,” he replied, “I’m coming”

 

They stopped at the others’ apartments in hopes of getting additional emotional support. Specialist Traynor…Sam squeezed nervously into the back (if it was possible to squeeze into an empty shuttle, Sam certainly could). Garrus was out. Miranda and Jack said they’d be over after training. Legion got in immediately (James had had difficulty accepting that one, lone geth, the one that had already been dead, had survived the geth outage, just like he had had trouble having a geth on the Normandy to begin with. But something about Legion always ended up making everything comfortable. Maybe it was the N7 armor …). 

The krogan were back in Tuchanka. Liara was helping rebuild Thessia (though there was also a rumour that the Shadow Broker had set up their new base in the abandoned subway tunnels of London). Kaidan shook his head when they told him, saying that he was trying to move on and would rather not think about it. Joker said pretty much the same thing, though with less conviction (He was very reserved these days, EDI’s loss had hit him hard. James and Steve tried to visit him often, but they feared he would never be the happy, joking man they had once known).

They found Tali in a café with an asari. She looked up, surprised.

“What’s going on?”

“Esteban here has a job that you could help with,” James figured he might as well sit down and introduce himself while he was at it (the asari was Hot, if a little old, and certainly familiar from that party). Tali and Steve shared a look before Tali looked back to the asari.

“This would be James,” she informed her, “N7. Marine on the Normandy during the Reaper War”

The asari glanced at him levelly.

“I remember you attempting to convince Liara that muscles were better than biotics,” she told him, “My name’s Samara, if you’ve forgotten”

“Nice to meet you properly, ma’am”, James had hoped fervently that no one would remember his drunken stupidities, damn.

“Likewise,” Samara replied, “I’ve heard many good things about you from a number of sources. It’s a pleasure to meet you sober. Now, what is this job that you want Tali for?”

He had stopped nicknaming once they had landed in London, but he couldn’t stop himself now, Samara owned a nickname without question – The Queen.

 

It was literally a pile of rubble. Singed books, a pillow, something that may have once been a painting, thankfully no shot glasses. 

They were quiet, helping Steve pack up the boxes, but not really wanting to break the silence, no one would admit it, but it was a mourning ceremony.

Shepard was missing. No one knew what had happened, but she had most likely stood in the middle of an explosion that she had initiated. Now, in one more month, she would be declared dead. The only thing they had left was her room on the Normandy (which would not be touched until she was dead) and this pile of rubble that was barely hers to begin with. It all felt rather bleak. 

Looking at them all, James considered himself the lucky one. He hadn’t known Shepard very long, unlike Tali and Samara and Legion, and they had never had any relationship other than soldier and commanding officer, unlike Sam. Shepard was his hero, his friend, his Lola and she had changed his life, but he had a distance some of the others didn’t have, and he had Steve (no one else had Steve, their loss, his gain). 

And yet, he didn’t feel lucky at this moment, staring at the burnt remains of something that vaguely resembled a chair. He felt as if he had lost everything that ever had meaning in his life. He was a shell, a soldier doing his duty without a cause. He angrily wiped his tears away before anyone could notice and continued digging out the less damaged things to be boxed away and stored in some warehouse somewhere.

 

They found one thing worth saving (besides the corner of something that might have once been their photo from the party, but it also could have been one of the abstract paintings that had been upstairs…) – an unassembled model of the Normandy SR-2 that had only survived thanks to the fancy fireproof packaging. (James sometimes forgot how rich Shepard was, of course she’d only shop in the top-brand model shops that always feared their models would explode in flames). 

The model packaging was faint and charred, but he could dimly see her messy handwriting at the top of the package, “For Joker, once assembled”. Just another one of those things that she had never gotten around to before dying, going missing (she wasn’t dead yet. James doubted he’d believe she was dead even once it was official, Shepard was just one of those people that didn’t die, no matter how long they were missing). 

Tali assembled it, once they had dropped the boxes off in the warehouse, and they delivered it to Joker, with the note. James turned away, pretending to politely avoid seeing Joker’s tears. But, in reality, he was just hiding his own. He was ready for Lola to come back.


	6. Garrus Vakarian

_Commander Jennifer Shepard: missing for **12** Months_

_“If I’m up in that bar and you’re not, I’ll be looking down. You’ll never be alone”_

Garrus was fed up with believing that. He didn’t even know if she was there or not. But, wherever she was, she was sure as hell not with him, and he had never felt so alone before in his life. Maybe the bar didn’t have proper viewing windows. 

Twelve months. She had been missing twelve months. The records claimed she was dead, they had even held a memorial service for her on the Normandy. Sam had cleaned out her cabin on the Normandy, with some help from others. He had refused to go. It would have meant admitting defeat, admitting she was gone, for good. He couldn’t afford himself that luxury without seeing her body as proof.

She had already died once and it couldn’t happen again. He was sure of it. She was just waiting for the best time to come back. Or maybe she was stranded, teleported across some void before the explosion, slowly making her way back. Or maybe her body was in the wreck of the Citadel, barely alive, but still breathing (12 months later? unlikely, but _she_ could do it). Because there was absolutely no way she could be dead. 

And he trusted her with everything he had. If she wasn’t here, with him, with everyone that needed her, she probably had a good reason. But hell, it was getting hard to wait much longer. 

Every single day they uncovered more and more salvage, and none of it was what he was really looking for. His coworkers looked at him with a mixture of fear and pity and he hated them for it.

“We’ve all lost someone!” he wanted to scream at them, “We’re all suffering! I’m just luckier than you because mine is coming back”. But instead, he’d fight his way into another disappointing pile of rubble. 

Twelve months. She was assumed dead. He thought of the official Alliance memorial that he had refused to attend. He thought of the official Council memorial that had gone to and then left early on because he was just so sick of everyone assuming she was dead.

“No Shepard without Vakarian,” she had said before they left for the Conduit. Didn’t it work the other way too? No Vakarian without Shepard. Here was the proof. He had no clue who he was at the moment, but it certainly wasn’t the Garrus Vakarian that had mentioned the concept of family and children with Shepard a year ago (though she was right, of course, she’d be a terrible parent). And he wasn’t archangel, either. Justice didn’t matter, nothing mattered anymore, nothing except Shepard. 

He wanted Miranda to matter. He had finally gotten her back, forgiven her for her absence. And he had missed her so much when they were separated and now, he just looked at her and saw…nothing. And he knew it was him that changed. Miranda was still the amazing, brilliant woman who had walked into his life and changed every single one of his assumptions about humans in about ten seconds (she even had him trusting Cerberus for a bit). Just now, the only thing he saw was that she was not Shepard and he hated himself for thinking that. (Back when they had been on the Normandy together, Miranda had been the only person he could see. He was with Shepard because Miranda had pushed him nose first into her to begin with. He felt so guilty for the change in loyalty).

He wanted Tali to matter. Especially Tali, she got the short end of the stick on everything – losing Legion, losing Shepard, losing him (not officially, but he wasn’t around that often anymore), stuck on Earth from necessity (she was the only one who could ever rebuild the geth and the quarians knew it and were taking advantage of it) and a strong sense of loyalty (she really should just get back to Rannoch and build that house before someone horrible like Han’Gerrel took it). Tali was his worst betrayal, really. Girlfriend, soul mate, sister, everything. And here he was forgetting her for some dead (missing) commanding officer. 

And now? He was poisoned with his longing and he was poisoning everyone else around him. And Shepard wasn’t here. He wasn’t even sure if she would be. The thought was enough to make him stop in his tracks.

No Vakarian without Shepard. Garrus Vakarian had died the moment Shepard had left him in the shuttle to run for the Conduit. He owed it to the others (especially Tali and Miranda) to leave. It was the least he could do for them, the only thing he could do for them now.”

 

“I thought you said you’d meet me at the bar, not some old hole in an abandoned shuttle wreck”

If he turned around, she wouldn’t be there, and then he would be disappointed. His father always said turians didn’t hear things or hallucinate, but then again, most turians hadn’t spent so much time internalizing human behavior, he was convinced that he was hallucinating. And he didn’t want it to stop. 

“I guess I should have known better than to leave you on your own for so long”

The voice…Shepard paused. Garrus paused too, wondering what she’d say next, what his mind wanted her to say.

“Sorry,” he could hear the inflection in her voice, she was probably shaking her head, “that was in poor taste”

He froze and just listened, willing the hallucination to continue.

Uneven footsteps, and then a gentle touch on his shoulder, Shepard’s touch.

“Garrus?”

He turned and the hallucination didn’t go away.

She was standing there, more vibrant than she ever was in his memory. Her clothes looked old and she was leaning heavily on some kind of cane, but it was, without a doubt, Shepard. 

He wanted to play it cool, like he always did, pretend that he was fine, make those dry jokes that she loved so much, hide, but he had lost control of himself the minute he had heard her voice. 

His father always said that turians didn’t cry, but he didn’t know how else to describes the liquid pouring out of his eyes (too much time with humans). 

“I…I didn’t know if you were coming back,” his voice broke, another first for a turian (maybe he wasn’t turian any more, Shepard’s fault). 

She reached out gently and touched his cheek, just like that first time in her cabin, when they had first become “official” (how Miranda had described he, he never quite understood it). He had said that he had wanted something to go right, no knowing how absolutely wrong everything could go, but he had forgotten that, yes, sometimes something did go right, her touch was his reminder. 

“I’ll always come back,” she said quietly, “it just might take me a while.” 

He couldn’t stop the tears, and he couldn’t find his words, so he just leaned his forehead against hers. Garrus Vakarian had been missing, declared dead, and now he was back.


	7. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> things to note  
> -James was Shepard's birth name. She doesn't like it, ever. This is the only time it will ever be mentioned. Nasty evil birth name. (By the beginning of Mass Effect, she was signing everything as "J. Shepard"...)  
> -Grunt and Liara are totally a couple, even if my tags don't say so.  
> the end.

Shepard hadn’t realized exactly how long it had been. An entire year, an entire fucking year. 

She knew it wasn’t her fault – she had spent most of the year unconscious and most of her waking hours in excruciating pain. It had only been in the past few days that she had been able to stay awake for a period of time, and then sit up, and then walk, and, soon after, the keepers had transported her in front of Garrus’ shuttle and left without even waving good-bye. 

But when she saw the changes, she couldn’t help but question herself – why hadn’t she recovered sooner? Why hadn’t she thought to ask the keepers to send out a message saying she was safe? Why hadn’t she just pushed through the pain, like she normally did?

Or maybe…why hadn’t she just stayed death? 

They were moving on, maybe not in the way should would have liked, but they were. Jack and Miranda had their students, Sam was working in translation, Legion and Tali were rebuilding the geth (she couldn’t begin to express her joy at seeing Legion, alive and well, and, when she realized no one could explain his presence, she decided to just accept him without asking why, kind of like the piece of N7 armor on Legion’s arm), James and Cortez had finally found each other (took them long enough), Liara had a new base as Shadow Broker in the center of London, with assistance from Kasumi, and Kaidan was looking towards promotion (and a salarian boyfriend, another thing she decided was better not to question). A photo and Eve and Wrex and their baby, Urdnot Mordin, sat in the living room, next to one of Samara and Falere in front of a newly rebuilt monastery, and another of Grunt and Jack facing off in an arena, cheered on by krogans and biotics alike, and a very out-of-place Liara. 

 

But there was the pain, too. Visiting Joker was a punch to the gut. If he wasn’t flying, he was sitting. An assembled model of the Normandy (that looked suspiciously like one she had left in her apartment) sat on the counter, untouched. He answered questions, but that was all, no jokes. Shepard left his tiny apartment wondering, for the first time, if she had been right to fire the crucible and destroy EDI along with the reapers.

She heard about how Sam had spent their first eight months starving on the streets, too ashamed to ask for help. She heard about how Tali had fought to bring EDI back, and it was only her throwing a wrench in the wrong direction and breaking Joker’s arm that had forced her to admit defeat. She heard about the fights James had gotten into and the people he had put in the hospital. 

And, of course, she heard about Garrus. She heard how he had stopped, simply refused to continue, how he had forgotten about anyone but her (Shepard felt she should be flattered, but she was just heartbroken), and how he had finally left, without telling anyone where he was (until the Keepers conveniently dropped her right outside), how even the Shadow Broker teamed up with an Asari justicar and all of Aralakh company couldn’t find him.

Wounds like that were never going to heal, no matter how many people came back from the dead, no matter how much time passed. She hated admitting defeat.

 

She had Cortez drive to Brixton and leave her. The streets were unrecognizable, no longer the ones from her childhood as a street rat. A dead reaper had fallen on most of the neighborhood, fitting, she guessed, considering that reapers were the thing that had changed the course of her life forever. The young boy, James, that had races around Brixton picking credits off of anyone and everyone was dead and Commander Jennifer Shepard stood in his place, twice back from the dead. 

She had grown up without any family and now she had one of the largest families possible, spread across multiple systems and planets. She had Tali’s trust and love (which had certainly been questionable for a long time), she had the question of who was the better shooter to settle with Garrus (her, obviously, he just refused to believe it), and she had Sam (who had miraculously survived the loss of their toothbrush). 

She would stand next to Miranda and Sam as they fought the Binary Legalities together, until those idiotic ancient laws were nothing but history. She would enjoy James’ eggs, while sharing exasperated expressions with Cortez at his absurd antics. She would laugh along with Jack’s students at her banter with Miranda. She would visit Tuchanka and tell Urdnot Mordin the heroic story of his namesake. Someday, she’d visit Liara to meet a new asari with clear blue eyes and tell her how her father single-handedly destroyed an army of Ravagers. She’d let Kasumi steal the Normandy (only for a trial run, though). She might even finally learn why Legion wore her armor. And, someday, she’d visit him and Tali on Rannoch, where the quarians would share their homeworld with Tali’s rebuilt geth.

Walking back to the apartment took hours (She really should have called Cortez, but she needed the time alone). When she got back, Joker was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a beer, the model Normandy sitting on the table. He looked up when she walked in and smiled.

“Hey, thanks Commander,” he gestured towards the model, “Not as good as the real thing, but she’ll have to do until they let me back on a ship”

Shepard just smiled.

The wounds would never heal, but the world (the galaxy) kept turning, moving on. And, sometimes, that was enough to make every ache and pain worth it.


End file.
